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wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “scrapers”

wp.org orders by popularity, so a plugin a host bundled onto millions of sites, or a big-brand one that's slow and mediocre, can sit at the top. Our ranking is built to answer a different question: which of these is actually worth installing. How this works →

For “scrapers”, we and wp.org disagree on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 6 of the top 20.

wp.org search ranks on

Install count (uncapped), the raw star average, freshness, and support. Popularity dominates, so the biggest install base usually wins regardless of how it got there.

We add

A cap on the install boost, volume-weighted ratings, and signals wp.org can't see: whether the install base is organic or host-pushed, and its risk of being pulled.

Ranked above its merit

WindCodex ScraperBlock – Block AI Scrapers & Bots from WordPress & WooCommerce shows at wp.org #16 but places #22 on merit, a gap of 6 places. Its 60+ installs carry it up the search order; its 0.0★ average from 0 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

merit plugin wp.org
1 Under Construction 600K+ · 4.8★ (1285) wp.org #2 1 too low 2 301 Redirects – Redirect Manager 300K+ · 4.7★ (578) wp.org #4 2 too low 3 Known Agents – Track AI Bots and Crawlers, Block Scrapers, Analyze LLM Referral Traffic 1K+ · 4.8★ (6) wp.org #1 2 too high 4 Defender Security – Malware Scanner, Login Security & Firewall 80K+ · 4.8★ (334) wp.org #5 1 too low 5 WP Reset 300K+ · 4.8★ (1014) wp.org #7 2 too low 6 WP Scraper 2K+ · 4.5★ (23) wp.org #3 3 too high 7 Simple Author Box 90K+ · 4.3★ (115) wp.org #6 1 too high 8 Minimal Coming Soon – Coming Soon Page 100K+ · 4.3★ (282) wp.org #8 9 NinjaFirewall (WP Edition) – Advanced Security Plugin and Firewall 100K+ · 4.9★ (220) wp.org #10 1 too low 10 External Links – nofollow, noopener & new window 80K+ · 4.3★ (247) wp.org #9 1 too high 11 Blackhole for Bad Bots 30K+ · 4.7★ (148) wp.org #11 12 Colorlib 404 Customizer 5K+ · 4.7★ (51) wp.org #12 13 Better Robots.txt – AI-Ready Crawl Control & Bot Governance 5K+ · 4.5★ (102) wp.org #23 10 too low 14 Trace My IP – Visitor IP Tracker, Stats Analytics & Page Views Counter with Email Alerts 1K+ · 4.5★ (21) wp.org #18 ↑1 4 too low 15 Disable Right Click RB – Content Copy Protection, Prevent Copy & No Right Click 600+ · 4.2★ (14) wp.org #14 ↑8 1 too high 16 Affiliate Links – Link Cloaking and Management 3K+ · 5.0★ (10) wp.org #17 ↓2 1 too low 17 App for Cloudflare® 1K+ · 4.7★ (14) wp.org #22 5 too low 18 Bot Traffic Shield – Block Bad Bots and Stop AI Bots Crawlers 900+ · 5.0★ (5) wp.org #13 5 too high 19 Tasty Recipes Lite – WordPress Recipe Card Plugin with Built-In Recipe Schema 2K+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #15 ↓1 4 too high 20 Cryptex | E-Mail Address Protection 800+ · 4.0★ (4) wp.org #19 ↓1 1 too high 21 ShieldUp – Bad Bots, Scrapers, Attackers 70+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #24 3 too low 22 WindCodex ScraperBlock – Block AI Scrapers & Bots from WordPress & WooCommerce 60+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #16 6 too high 23 WhoKnew Shield — Email, Phone & Address Security 30+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #20 3 too high 24 Forge AI Bot Log – Block AI Bots, Crawler Detection & Verification 90+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #21 3 too high

Merit ranking caps the install boost at 1M (wp.org leaves it uncapped), replaces the raw star average with a volume-weighted Bayesian score and a Wilson lower bound, and keeps wp.org's own freshness and compatibility decays. Method from the plugin-directory source; see Meta Trac #8298. Positions are tracked daily from the first visit to a keyword, so the small arrows show movement since tracking began.